12 Angry Men Review

Essay Preview: 12 Angry Men Review

The movie was rather interesting. I found it amazing how one person could change minds of so many other people so effectively in quite a short amount of time.

Th movie starts with 12 juries sitting in a court, listening to the judge talking about the case of a high degree murder. A 19-years old boy from slum reportedly stabbed his father to death. The judge asks the jury to retire into the Jury Room in order to come up with the right decision – whether the boy is guilty or not.

The twelve juries enter the Jury Room, sit down around a table, and start voting. The first voting round ends up with eleven juries voting for "guilty“ while one jury – Jury #8 - voted for "not guilty". His decision starts a passionate session full of quarrels.

The Jury #8 believes that it is not fair to sentence someone to death so easily without further consideration of the whole case. He wants to talk about it a little more.

Jury #7 gets offended very quickly, saying that he did not vote for "guilty" just because it was easy for him. He claims that nothing could ever change his mind.

Jury #10 says that no one can trust people living in slum. He seems to be very malignant towards slum people, which offends the jury #5 because he grew up in slum as well.

Jury #9, the oldest one, thinks that it is a terrible thing to believe that no one from slum can be trusted. He believes that dishonesty is not a "group-character thing".

Jury #3 thinks that 19-years old boy is old enough to commit a murder.

Then, they decide to comment on the case on by one.

The Jury #2 says the boy is guilty. He does not give any good reasons to support his belief. He just thinks that the boy is guilty because it is “obvious”. When the Jury #8 tells him that the evidences were not so strong to prove his guilt, he still thinks the boy is guilty. However, he does not seem to be too convinced.

The Jury #3 refers to a witness – an old man living under the boy’s apartment, who heard loud voices, a shout “I’m gonna kill you, father!”, and then saw the boy running downstairs and through the hall. He called the police, and they found the dead body. The jury believes that this is enough of proof. Also, he says that the boy apparently lied by saying he was at the movies at that time.

The Jury #10 also mentions another witness – a woman, who claims that she actually saw the boy killing his father from the window of her apartment located right across the street. Jury #8 wonders why he believes that woman, if she is from slum as well.

The Jury #5 wants to pass. He seems to be unsure about what to say. It turns out that he has lived in slum for his whole life as well, and is a little bit sensitive to this topic.

The Jury #6 does not know. He does not say any reason why the boy should be labeled as “guilty”.

The Jury #7 starts proving that the boy is guilty by naming his other “criminal records” (stealing a car, stabbing someone’s arm).

Finally, it is the Jury #8’s turn. He wants to consider all the evidences again. Starting with the murder weapon – a knife – he wants to see it again. He thinks that it is possible that someone else stabbed the boy’s father after the boy lost his knife. After a moment later, he believes that the knife does not have to belong to the boy because someone could have the same looking knife. When no one believes that theory, he pulls out another knife, which looks exactly the same as the knife by which the boy’s father was killed. He bought it in a small shop in the slum area where the boy lives. This makes the Jury #5 ensure about the boy’s guilt.

The Jury #7 starts being nervous because he wants to leave already, but Jury #9 says that one night is nothing for making the right decision compared to the fact that a possibly innocent man can die because of them.

The Jury #8 suggests another vote with a statement that if it’s still 11 to 1 in favor of “guilty”, he will subscribe to “guilty” straight away as well. However, another vote for “not guilty” appears. They all think that the Jury #5 is the one, who voted like that because he comes from slum, too. However, it turns out that it was actually the oldest one, the Jury #9.

All juries keep leaning on the witnesses’ testimonies. The Jury #3 gets really irritated, and ends up offending the Jury #8 by starting playing a Tic-Tac-Toe game. This, however, helps the Jury #8 to realize another hole in one of the witnesses’ testimony. He realizes that an elevator train was passing by at the very second when the murder occurred according to the woman living across the street. He points out that hearing the shot could not be possible because of the noise the train made. Moreover, he considers the phrase “I’m gonna kill you” to be irrelevant because many boys shout this to their father in their states of anger, but it does not really mean that they seriously want to kill them.

All of this makes the Jury #5 change his vote to “not guilty”.

As another thing, the Jury #8 wants to see the diagram of the old man’s apartment (the one, who claims to see the boy running down the hall). He tries to reconstruct the whole situation, when the old man went all the way from his bed to the front door, opening it just in time to see the boy. The time turns out to be longer than originally stated. The Jury #3 disagrees and argues again.

They all do another voting round. The results are 6 for “guilty” and 6 for “not guilty”.

As a next step, they try to reconstruct the way the boy must have handled the knife when killing his father. The Jury #5, who comes from slum, helps show that the boy could not hold the knife as it was previously stated. The jury knows how people from slum hold these knives because he, unfortunately, has seen it many times before.

The Jury #7 suddenly changes his vote for “not guilty”, but does not have any good reason for this action. He just wants to leave as soon as possible because he has tickets to a theatre tonight.

Another voting round occurs with the results of 9 votes for “not guilty” and 3 votes for “guilty”.

The remaining evidence, which unable the case to be “solved”, is the testimony of a woman from the apartment located across the venue, who saw the boy from her bed. It turns out that she wears glasses; therefore she could not see the boy clearly without them.

In the end, the only unconvinced one is the Jury #3, who still refuses to admit the boy’s innocence. After bearing the pressure of being the only one left, he finally snaps and join their “not guilty” side.